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Connectivity Technology Data

What’s behind shifting consumers from awareness to loyalty? Data connectivity

By Scott Howe, chief executive officer

LiveRamp

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June 22, 2020 | 6 min read

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A friend received a free one-year subscription to Disney+ when he signed up for an unlimited wireless plan with Verizon. What amazed him was the fact that as an existing subscriber, the credit was immediately applied to his account. We all know when a good customer experience happens to us. Too often, effective marketing is mistakenly perceived as hawking more products when the real goal is making customers happy.

Surprise: Consumers like data-driven experiences

Surprise: Consumers like data-driven experiences

The power of data connectivity

This example shows that small things make a big difference. It also illustrates that partnerships like this require a solid, privacy-first data infrastructure. The data sent from one brand to its partner to activate an advertised benefit must be stripped of personally identifiable information (PII) and shared in a privacy-conscious way. This is how seamless customer experiences, such as a customer receiving Disney+ for free through their Verizon plan, work.

This is not easy in a time when most organizations still struggle to unify, control, and activate customer data internally. Imagine having this level of granularity in your customer base, and being able to securely share permissioned data with a partner.

Beyond loyalty, these types of experiences can rebuild trust with consumers, underscoring the importance of using data in a way that respects their choices and promotes innovation. While some existing technologies offer this vision at a high level, they were not built with marketers’ future data needs in mind.

Limitations of CDPs and DMPs

Neither a DMP nor a CDP would have been able to connect my friend’s data from Verizon to Disney+. DMPs still rely on cookies, even though cookie pools are decreasing daily and the end of browser support is coming fast. CDPs focus on PII-data coming from CRM systems, limiting their use for both internal and external data collaborations.

Pillars of a reliable data infrastructure

In order to tie innovative data strategies to growth, marketers cannot be limited in the types of data they use and analysts cannot continue to spend the bulk of their time organizing and processing data. A data infrastructure built with privacy by design addresses these pain points by promoting data access, working with different technologies, and enabling seamless customer experiences:

  • Start with data stewardship: Partnerships can only work with the technical and legal means for data collaboration. Clean rooms are one option, but they are usually owned by walled gardens and publishers, not by brands. To truly own your data destiny, you must have access to a secured data environment that meets legal and technical requirements. Having this will facilitate partnership conversations and make it easier to get started.
  • Access the data you need: Collaboration can begin when a neutral workspace is in place for first-, second-, and third-party data to be accessed and analyzed. For Verizon and Disney+, this likely involved comparing Verizon’s subscriber base to Disney+’s audience without sharing PII. From here, they could have used additional data to understand who in this target audience would enjoy Disney+ and eventually subscribe. All of this can be time consuming without an infrastructure that offers tailored privacy controls to ensure that data use matches its permissioning between partners. This level of transparency was once only part of advanced data strategies. Now, it’s table stakes.
  • Work with existing technology: Once a sizable audience is built, the next step is to prepare for activation. Any marketer can tell you about a promising partnership stifled by mismatched technologies. Now, the imperative is for technologies to be interoperable—marketers should expect nothing less in order to consistently respect consumer choice. When marketing technologies use the same data in its original context, marketers are able to apply more precise data controls to uphold consumer privacy. Beyond giving consumers control over their data, interoperability ensures minimal—if any—changes to existing tech stacks, enabling turnkey activation.
  • Offer seamless experiences: While deciding to partner, Verizon and Disney+ may have also considered how to best reach their target audience. My friend might have received a renewal notice including the offer while someone who just moved might have been sent a direct mailer for Verizon FiOS. By leveraging the same data infrastructure for audience building, analytics, and activation across channels, both brands can maintain addressability of their target audience and also enhance their knowledge of this unique subset.

Imagine the possibilities at your organization, and you can easily see the benefits of a data infrastructure that puts stewardship first and supports data access, interoperability, and seamless customer experiences. This is a winning strategy for companies in any industry, and it all starts with an investment in data connectivity.

By connecting more disparate data internally and externally, you’re well positioned to extract more value from what you know, drive long-term business growth, and build an even deeper base of happy, loyal customers.

Scott Howe, CEO, LiveRamp

Web: https://liveramp.com/

Tel: (866) 352-3267

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LiveRamp

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/liveramp/

Connectivity Technology Data

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LiveRamp

LiveRamp is the data collaboration platform of choice for the world’s most innovative companies. A groundbreaking leader in consumer privacy, data ethics, and...

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